She turned the full beam of her smile on him.

"I'm talking about the answer to all of our holiday prayers. I'm talking about being able to help out just about everybody who wrote in to the Most Needy Cases Fund."

"How're we going to manage that?"

He knew that the money they had for grants was nowhere near enough to do what Megan was saying. Meanwhile, Mariette Dugan was scribbling like mad on her notepad.

"We're going to manage that," Megan said, "because some wonderfully generous soul has donated half a million dollars to make it happen."

Vic was glad Dugan hadn't brought a photographer along. One of the last things Vic Maltese wanted to see in this world was a picture of himself on the front page of the Chronicle with his mouth hanging open.

Chapter Fourteen Katherine couldn't understand what had Megan so excited. She had rushed into the office, grabbed her by the arms and pulled her out from behind the desk.

"What are you doing?" Katherine asked.

She was already feeling as tired as if it were nine o'clock at night rather than four in the afternoon. A dose of Megan's exuberance might be more than she could handle just now.

"I'm telling you that our wishes have come true, our prayers have been answered," Megan gushed.

"Now, there's only one thing left to do. We have to jump up and down."

Megan began doing precisely that, springing straight up from the gray tile floor in front of the desk. Katherine made an awkward half hop and thumped back down in response to being dragged along by Megan.

But she resisted the next leap, anchoring both of them to the ground.

"Have you taken complete leave of your senses?" she asked.

"What are you jumping about "Didn't they call you from the office? They were supposed to give you the message. I can't believe you're the only one who doesn't know.

You of all people should have been told before anybody else. "

Megan was gushing again, even more effervescently, and Katherine was beginning to experience some excitement of her own despite the downbeat tone of the day so far. "Tell me what's happening," she said.

"Half a million bucks, that's what's happening," Megan chirped.

"Half a million smackeroos. Somebody's donated half a million to your project. Somebody's giving the center a half a million dollars to use for holiday grants."

"I don't believe it," Katherine said. That was the truth, but the wonder of Megan's words was beginning to dawn. "Believe it. I saw the bank-draft check myself."

"For a half million dollars?"

Megan nodded vigorously.

"A half million dollars."

"Five hundred thousand?" Katherine was so dazed she'd barely been able to make that calculation.

"The same."

Katherine was about to repeat that she didn't believe it when another question occurred to her.

"Who's the contributor?"

Megan shook her head.

"n.o.body has a clue. The donation was anonymous."

"Somebody gave us that much money and doesn't want credit for it?"

This was becoming more fantastic by the second.

"And you're sure it's real? This couldn't be some kind of joke?" Katherine heard how bizarre that possibility sounded, too, but she'd witnessed some bizarre things lately.

"They already called the bank from the office. The check is real and negotiable. All we have to do is deposit it in the Most Needy Cases Fund account and we can start writing grant awards against it immediately."

Katherine shook her head slowly.

"This is a miracle," she said, even though her mind hadn't yet entirely come to understand that what Megan was saying was true.

"We'll call him the Secret Santa," a new voice chimed in from the doorway to Katherine's office.

She looked up to see Mariette Dugan, holding the notepad she carded around with her so perpetually it might have been growing out of the ends of her fingers. She looked very pleased.

"The guy who sent the check," she was saying in response to what Katherine had no doubt was the dazed expression on her face.

"I'm going to call him Secret Santa. For the article I'm writing."

"Wait a minute. I'm not sure we want this in the paper just yet,"

Katherine said. She was trying to think what the best approach would be, but her thoughts were still moving at bewildered post-shock speed.

"Sorry about that, honey," Mariette said.

"You can't sit on this one.

It's front-page stuff, and I've got the exclusive. " * She looked around at the small crowd gathered outside the office door, as if spying out any other reporters who might have shown up in the past few minutes. Katherine followed that gaze. Vic was standing at the back of the gathering and a couple of feet away from it.

Unlike the rest of the ecstatic crowd, Vic looked anything but elated. In fact, she couldn't imagine him looking more displeased.

Before she had time to form an opinion about why he might be playing the killjoy at such a moment, Megan tightened her grip on Katherine's arms again.

"As I said, there's only one thing to do," Megan chirped in a happy singsong.

Katherine tore her gaze away from Vic's face.

"You're absolutely right," she said.

"Only one thing left to do." "Jump up and down,"

she and Megan chimed together. They resumed their leaps into the air.

The crowd at the doorway followed suit almost instantly, jumping up and down and hugging one another to the accompaniment of such glee as only a pealing chorus of holiday bells might have matched for merriment.

Only Vic Maltese did not join in.

VIc HAD BEEN what his mother used to call "stewing in his own juice" ever since this afternoon. He winced at the thought of his mother now. She was the only thing that' ever bothered him much about having walked away from his family and his past.

She used to make a big deal out of Christmas when he was a kid back home. He'd put serious money on a bet that she still did that. She was probably over there in that big tomb of a house right now, engineer ing a yuletide extravaganza with mountains of food and presents and the place decorated beautifully as always.

Vic knew that, however many times he might do his bah-humbug number on the outside, in his heart he missed his mother' s version of the holiday season. The truth was, back in those days, he'd loved every bit of it. He still remembered, sharp as yesterday, the smell of pine boughs and baking. Most of all, he missed his mother. He'd thrown out the baby with the bathwater, as they say, tossed out the best part of his life in order to get rid of the worst, and she was the best part.

Even so, that wasn't what bothered him most about the d.a.m.ned holidays. He knew how sad it must make her not to have him around anymore, and that sadness would be sadder still at Christmas. No length of time would dull the pain of this particular loss for her.

She was that kind of mother, and he would feel guilty forever because his decision hurt her.

A second truth was that Vic also thought about his mother when his present life was giving him a hard time for one reason or another. He could have used her advice in times like those. He could use her advice tonight. She'd know how to untangle this mess real fast. She'd see straight through to the heart of the situation, no matter how messed up and confusing things appeared on the surface. She wouldn't walk away from her emotions, either, the way he had a talent for doing. He could almost hear her telling him not to do that-now. This was the down side of advice. As many times as not, it turned out to be exactly what he didn't feel like being told.

He had managed to avoid listening to his mother's imagined words, right up till the end of this long workday. Even after that, he almost convinced himself the only thing he cared about was getting to the diner to pick up a burger for the supper he wasn't really interested in eating, much less cooking. There was a pot of pasta sauce in his refrigerator, but even thinking about that reminded him of last night. Reminders of last night made his mother's voice echo louder than ever, letting him know that he had to face up to what was happening inside him. He made it all the way to the diner parking lot before he gave in and turned around with a spin of wheels that fish tailed the Trans Am dangerously close to a telephone pole.

It was a safe guess that Katherine would still be in her office. She worked late most nights. He pulled into the center's parking lot and spotted the light from her window. He angled his car in next to her four-wheeler and killed the engine. Wind buffeted the car windows in the silence that followed. On his way here, he'd seen shoppers hurrying along the streets, juggling packages. Three days till Christmas. He wished he didn't want so much for that to mean more to him than it did. Instead, he felt as desolate right now as the film of dry snow skittering along the asphalt pavement. There might be lots of holiday activity not very far away, but this place was deserted.

Vic registered the significance of that. Katherine was alone here.

She might have worked late at her office many other nights, but this night felt different to him, more dangerous. He'd been experiencing an annoying itch of his instincts ever since that anonymous donation had come in that afternoon. Something about it didn't set right with him.

Vic knew he was the suspicious type. He had to keep that from coloring the way he saw things until he'd come up with strong proof that his suspicions could be real. He had no such proof now. Still, he couldn't help wondering about a possible connection between what was going on with Coyote and this out-of-the-blue answer to everybody's prayers for the holiday grant program, the same program Coyote was applying for when this whole mess got started. Sure, there were folks who got so turned on with holiday spirit now and then that they'd fork over half a mil to help out other folks. What bothered Vic was that this particular burst of goodwill happened to occur at the same time Coyote was missing and maybe on the run from a bad guy in a black car. This guy, and whatever cronies he might have, were obviously hot to track Coyote down.

Besides Coyote himself, there was another common link to both situationsa"Katherine. That thought sent Vic running across the parking lot toward the door *into the center.

He fumbled for his key to the night lock on the gate, then took a maddeningly long time finding the keyhole in the shadows from the overhanging roof of the one-story building. Once he was inside, the silence of the corridors bothered him even more than the eerie howling of the wind outside had done. He raced down the hallway toward Katherine's office and skidded on snow-damp boot soles around the corner that led to her door. Though the lights were on, her office was empty. Where was she?

Vic listened. The building continued to be as silent as the grave, and he wished that comparison hadn't come to mind. He considered calling out her name, then decided against it. If she was in trouble, he might be of more help to her with the element of surprise on his side. He was about to return to the main hallway and check the rooms on either side of it when he heard footsteps at what sounded like the opposite end of the long corridor he'd been about to enter. Whoever belonged to those feet was definitely in a big hurry, and headed in Vic's direction. He backed up and flattened himself against the wall on the far side of Katherine's doorway from the hall corridor. The shadows were deeper here, so he might not be seen right off. That was about the only advantage he'd have. His gun was back in the secret compartment of the lamp stand at home. He' wished he had the weapon on him now.

Maybe he could pretend he did. Vic reached into his jacket and pulled out the equipment-locker key, which he'd stuck in his pocket this afternoon on his way out the rear door of the gym for lunch.

Afterward, he'd been waylaid by Mariette Dugan. Otherwise, he would have gone back to his office to hang this up, the way he usually did, by the oblong of wood attached to the key That piece of wood was what he had in mind at the moment and the possible instant of shock and surprise he might be able to create with it. He held the wood oblong out in front of him but not far enough to extend beyond the shadows from the corner .

"Stop, or I'll shoot," he shouted in his most commanding voice as the footsteps reached the opening into the corridor directly across from him.

"Vic, it's me."

He recognized Katherine's voice.

"I'd appreciate it if you didn't shoot me," she said, peeking around the corner from the hallway.

"Do you think you could manage that?"

Vic felt like all kinds of a fool as he dropped his hand to his side.

"Sorry," he said.

"I thought you might be an intruder."

"You have a habit of meeting me with a gun in your hand."

"Except that it's not really a gun this time."

He walked out of the shadows and held out the block of wood with the key hanging from it where she could see them. Katherine had emerged from the corridor with obvious caution. She stared at the piece of wood for a moment before the smile began to crease her face. Then she started to laugh.

"If you'd turned out to be a really bad guy, I could have locked you up with the old volleyb.a.l.l.s and gym mats," Vic said.

"If you ever smelled those mats, you'd know what a tough punishment that might be."

Katherine was still laughing, choking a little as if to stop herself.

She leaned against the wall with one arm and clutched herself across the stomach with the other. Her laughter subsided some but didn't stop.

"Are you all right?"

She nodded as he reached out to steady her by taking her arm. She didn't resist when he led her inside her office.

"I'm sorry," she managed to splutter just before she sank into her chair behind the desk.

"I can't seem to stop laughing."

"You probably need some rest. What;s been going on here lately is enough to make anybody a little hysterical."

She'd looked as if she was about to set off into another wave of giggles before Vic said that. Now, the merriment was fading fast from her eyes.

"I'm not hysterical," she said, "and I don't appreciate your saying I am."

"Look," Vic said.

"I don't want to fight with you. It seems like we've been doing that all day."

"That's a bit of an exaggeration."

She appeared to have composed herself.

"Not an exaggeration by much," he said.

"This morning you were accusing me of being the kind of creep who would take advantage of an unconscious woman."

She didn't respond to that. Instead, she looked away from his gaze and moved a stack of file folders from one side of her desktop to the other.

"Do you really think I could do that?" he asked.

"I don't know what to think," She continued to fuss with the papers on her desk.